Should I Change Jobs?

So, as I mentioned in an earlier post, some friends came over to the apartment today. One of our friends has recently changed jobs and is earning about $10,000 more per year. I'm really excited for her. As I'm listening to her describe her new job and how she's working long hours and being treated unkindly by her new boss, it makes me even more eager to setup my life so I can work for myself. I'm currently not earning enough at my job but I'm trying to blog on the side so I can get some extra income. I have so many ideas and I unfortunately get started on things and never follow through...

Anyway, my friend has a new job and was talking about her finances and how she's ahead a couple of months with all her regular monthly payments (car, mortgage, etc.) Here I am living paycheck to paycheck and scrambling each month to make ends meet. I'm taking classes online again starting in August so changing jobs could negatively impact my school. I feel like I'm stuck working a retail job because that's all I've done. *retail management* My friends laugh and make comments about how I've had some really bad jobs.

Let's see... Job #1, started the week before I graduated high school. Ended up working my way into management at the age of 18 at a "big box" retailer. I was only earning $8.84/hour. However, I met my future husband at this job and made several close friends. Also, my Dear Boyfriend actually held the same position a year before me and earned a couple dollars more. I never knew until we started dating 6 years later.

Job #2, I worked at Michael's in the framing department PT while I was working at job #1. I quit after 3 weeks because my boss was never around and the other staff felt it wasn't necessary to show up to work. I was never given an associate ID/password for the framing software so I couldn't help customers when I was left alone for several hours at a time. When my coworkers were there, they were dangerous. Really. I wrote my resignation letter the day that my coworker took a sheet of glass the size of me and threw it across the room. I was earning $6.00/hour.

Job #3 replaced job #2. I worked at a home decor company. I ended up leaving job #1 after some major internal issues. I worked for the home decor company for 5 years. I bumped my store up from being on a list for a likely closure to being in the top 10 in the company. I was recognized by higher ups and got to travel. I was offered my own store (a couple of times) but decided I really needed to return to school. In my last year with the company, my Regional Manager quit and a new one was hired. At this time, my district manager was relocated and the store manager from the worst performing store in our district was promoted to be my new district manager. Before my regional manager quit, we had worked out dropping me from salaried to hourly without a pay decrease. I would no longer bonus every quarter, but would still almost break even with the established hourly rate. In addition, we had an agreement that I would no longer have to travel. When my new district manager was placed, she contacted payroll and had my pay rate reduced from 11.00 to 9.00/hour. I didn't even know until my first paycheck arrived. I had nothing in writing because my former regional manager was someone I trusted. Anyway, I basically said I was turning in my keys and after a month, my payrate was bumped up to 12.00/hour. I said, "Long story short..." so let me just say that I quit because the new district manager had actually gotten my regional manager setup to be fired so he ended up quitting. She had issues with him and issues with anyone that ran a store like him. I had a store in the top 10 and she'd come rip through my store trying to do things her way and we crossed... I was on a list of managers to be fired.. She became buddies with the regional manager and together they started firing managers left and right. So much, in fact, that the regional manager's former employer wrote a formal letter to my company stating that they'd take legal action if she kept stealing high level employees from their company. An email accidentally got forwarded to everyone in my district about a conversation between my district manager and one of the executives about some of these plans to change out all the manager that followed the old regional manager's style. This particular executive was someone that I had met in person and that was pretty much the last straw.
Job #4, I was offered a job to work for my former regional manager at another company. Yay! They kind of created a position for me in the store in my area. This did not go over well with the staff that had been there for several years. We eventually got along (I think?) but the customers were just too much. Shoplifting. Threats. I was just waiting to get robbed. A few months after I left, I heard that the manager was almost attacked. One of my former coworkers contacted me and told me that a customer had spit in her face in front of police. The police ended up arresting the lady because she had a warrant on her already.

Job #5, grocery store. I was working full-time and juggling a demanding course schedule at a major university. Most days I went to class from 8am to 3pm. I worked from 4pm to 12am, and sometimes 1am or 2am. I couldn't keep up with school so I had to leave.

Job #6, working at our local mall in customer service. I was offered a management job at a store within the mall and quit. (Would have stayed at both, but it was considered a conflict of interest)

Job #7, Boss from hell. He literally had temper tantrums like a 3 year old. No kidding. I walked off the job the night before inventory. After I left, his entire staff quit. The store closed down about six months later. Who knows where he is now.

Job #6 again... I was offered a position as an assistant marketing director at the mall. However, I was then told that they needed me to wait a month before finalizing their decision on making me a manager even though my pay rate had already been approved and I'd been offered the job. I was asked to come in for a second interview... which I did. Long story short, the boss hired her own daughter. I strongly suspected some money issues were occurring and they knew I was questioning things... I ended up quitting because I had enough of their power trips and unprofessional management style, plus I was concerned that they'd try to make it look like I was responsible for the money issues. A few months after I left, the mall manager and the bosses' daughter were fired. Her daughter was fired for theft of the deposit bag.

Job #8 (Current Job), selling on commission. Do you know what it feels like to be talked down to and yelled at? I've got to say that in my first week at this job, I encountered more angry, demanding, and spoiled people than I had encountered in all of my previous years in retail experience combined. I've reached the inability to be patient with people. The way our store is setup, you end up juggling all the customers even if you weren't the one that originally sold them stuff. My customers are usually really happy with me, but if something goes wrong with the actual product (out of my hands), wow.. Even people that have never even bought stuff from us will come in with something broken and they'll start getting pushy and upset. It just drains me.

So, after reading this, you can see that I'm done with retail. I want to be done with retail.